Southern Colorado in September

[podum]

I had an unexpected vacation in Lake City, Colorado last week.  We arrived after a long drive (14 hours from KC) to a wonderful view of fall Aspens.  Days were mid 60s, nights were cold with a morning frost every day.  Great weather.

With 8 days to spend, I had 3 full days of fishing (with the rest spent on activities with the family).  I spent one day on a medium sized creek, one on the local big water and one on a small alpine stream.  Day one was the medium sized Cebolla Creek.  It averages 15-20 feet wide and flows through a beautiful valley called Powderhorn.  Fishing was tough in the cold mornings all week, but improved as the sun got high in the sky and the bugs started moving.  Cebolla is a wild brown trout factory (averaging 10-15 inches).  There are no bait restrictions and plenty of campsites, but still lots of fish.  The brushy and steep banks protect lots of water.  If you are willing to do some tough wading, there are rewards. 

 

 

Day two, I fished the big water - the Lake Fork of the Gunnison.  This is a classic western free stone river.  The area just south of Blue Mesa Reservoir is a big, bruising river that isn't wadable until late July in an average snow pack year.  It has big browns, a recovering rainbow population (Whirling Disease) and some cutbow hybrids.  The scenery is out of this world.

Its the kind of place that makes me nervous wading by myself because it is remote and takes a significant effort to get out of the canyon in most spots.  I got into lots of browns and rainbows.  Here is the work of an incompetent camera man trying to capture the image of a beautiful San Juan Mountain rainbow trout.

 

The day was punctuated by a short lived fight with a 20+ brown trout that broke off on its third leap. 

 

There was lots of bear activity near town.  Our car got visited one night and there were lots of sightings.  

 

Because of picture posting data limits, I'm posting part two in a second thread....